In
two years, the zombie apocalypse will be here. By 2013, two-thirds of the
planet has been wiped out by Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency
Syndrome (ANSD), the zombie virus that kick-starts Armageddon. It's all
right here in The Zombie Autopsies -- the new book by MGH faculty/Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor Dr. Steven Schlozman, who comes to Brookline tonight.

Fans of World War Z should rejoice -- no meta cuteness infects the universe of The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse.
"The world is barren, hazy, apocalyptic," writes Dr. Stanley Blum, a
neurodevelopmental biologist for the CDC, and the last scientist sent to
the United Nations Sanctuary to study the zombie plague ANSD. By the time his
journals are recovered, Blum is believed to be dead, but researchers hope his observations
(which include many painstaking anatomical sketches of infected ghouls'
viscera) hold the key to a cure for ANSD -- a virus that seems to be
man-made. (And masterminded by evil hedge-fund investors, no less.) Blum himself shows no such optimism, however: "The world is barren,
hazy, apocalyptic," Blum continues. "Only a fool would have hope."

In
April of 2009, Schlozman gave a lecture at Coolidge Corner, where he
not only explained the potential neurobiological underpinnings of
zombie-ism, but also revealed the genesis of The Zombie Autopsies, which originally started as an eyebrow-raising fake research paper that snowballed into the book it is today.

If (when)
a zombie apocalypse becomes reality, we'll have a head start in
understanding them thanks to Schlozman's neuropsych insights. "What if
humans were all amygdala?" he asked the crowd. "Then, at least in the
zombie genre, we would have rage." Groves of internet trolls have argued
against the 28 Days
franchise as being true zombie films, but Schlozman can explain why:
"They seem to be able to move fluidly and with intention. They hunt. So
they have some sort of higher cortical function going on that allows
them hunt out the humans."

Tonight,
the zombie doc returns to the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Whether you
fancy the bloody mess of a good zombie tale or the meticulous world of
scientific education, this should tickle all the right parts of your
not-yet-eaten brain. Really, though, if you're human at all, you should
clear your schedule this evening, because a life with ANSD sounds
miserable.